William Gallas was fighting for his Arsenal future on Friday after reports emerged that he had been stripped of the captaincy and dropped for yesterday’s trip to Manchester City.
The French defender came under fire for his shock blast at his young teammates when he lifted the lid on the simmering discontent in the Arsenal dressing room in a remarkably candid interview on Thursday.
The 31-year-old former Chelsea player accused the club’s youngsters of lacking the stomach to fight for the Premier League title, claimed he had to separate arguing teammates during half-time of his side’s 4-4 draw against Tottenham and insisted an unnamed Gunners star insulted him and several colleagues.
PHOTO: AFP
On Friday, the respected France Football Web site reported, without quoting a source, that Gallas has been stripped of the captaincy by furious Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger.
Meanwhile, it was claimed in London that the player was not on the team coach which left for the airport for the flight to Manchester for yesterday’s Premier League clash.
Wenger had reportedly summoned the center-back to a meeting at the club’s London Colney training ground on Thursday.
Wenger has gone out of his way to defend Gallas against accusations that he lacks leadership skills ever since the defender was criticized for his on-pitch tantrum at the end of Arsenal’s draw at Birmingham last season.
The Times newspaper claimed Wenger was ready to hand the captain’s armband to Cesc Fabregas or Gael Clichy if the rest of Arsenal’s squad expressed unhappiness with Gallas’ comments.
Gallas became club captain at the beginning of last season after Thierry Henry was sold to Barcelona.
Former Arsenal defender Nigel Winterburn, who made nearly 600 appearances for the club from 1987-2000, joined the chorus of disapproval over Gallas’ rant.
“I’m very disappointed with Gallas’ comments,” he told Sky Sports News. “We all know arguments happen at half-time and full-time in any game, not just at Arsenal, and they’re dealt with inside the club.”
“It certainly doesn’t need the captain to come out and tell the world players have fallen out - that can be good, it shows they care and are not prepared to accept defeat,” Winterburn said.
“He actually said one teammate is being disruptive, which puts the suspicion of blame on four or five players. He hasn’t come out and named the player,” he said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier